Kinguin vs. Imm @ESL Predictions

— Kinguin has been showing great potential recently but they never ever reach it even when it matters. If you look up “potential” in the dictionary, you will see Kinguin as one of the examples. With some of the best players such as ScreaM, Maikelele, rain and even fox ( a VERY under rated player) has seen performing extremely well for the players they are. Dennis even has shown to play exceedingly well passed his expectations at times but usually on an inconsistent level. There have been some problems with the team internally that have been noticeable and it has definitely effected the team’s performance.

Communication and team performance has been a problem with the team’s performance, and it’s noticeable on certain maps. The maps they’ve been questionable are most likely maps the team players aren’t used to such as Inferno, Cache and especially Overpass. I’ve noticed that the T side performance have been deficient on all general maps but especially with the maps noted for worst performance. Team communication isn’t this team’s forte, but they do have some other great ideals that’ll have them hold up through this game for sure.

Things such as pure skill and aim has gotten this team through rough times. If this team didn’t have great aim, I’d doubt this team could get passed being called a tier 3 team. With players such as ScreaM and Maikelele along with more hype players, I can see why people could call this team their favorite of the others.

Other than their great aim, their CT performance is significantly stronger than their T performance. This could relate to the great, raw skill that the team has, especially since CT side mostly manages on holding corners and angles, while not peeking and pushing, so that’s a given.

Even though this team has great players and a manageable CT side performance, this team should put up a good fight against Immunity.

— On the other hand, Immunity was severely inadequate for performance as Virtus Pro just completely wiped the floor with them. Mainly due to a map choice that wasn’t in their favor in any way especially since they don’t play Cobble much. Immunity has shown they weren’t prepared at all for this game and I doubt they’ll be ready for their game against team Kinguin for tomorrow’s group matches.

A problem of predictable and easily read team strategies from the team’s IGL. Along with the inadequate strategies comes an oddly fashioned team management in real time such as players being late, early or falling behind in pushes, holds and rotations from this team. Real time adaptation is a huge problem for this team, although this team can have a good read on the opposing team occasionally. The team will sometimes push fast and strong, making an uncalled play will be a good strategy to pull off but against top tier teams such as Titan, Cloud9 or even Na’Vi, this could hardly worked especially with the type of team work and aim the team opposing Immunity can have. Although, when compared to Kinguin, the strats are par, possibly at the same level with each other.
In terms of pure skill, the team shouldn’t be anywhere near Kinguin’s talented players. I haven’t seen many fantastic plays at a consistent level coming from this team’s players but then again, this game in a major could take a turn of events for Immunity, but that’s very unlikely.

Immunity hasn’t been great when compared to the EU teams and that’ll be a big thing for this team’s expected performance against Kinguin.

Summary:

— Even though Kinguin is a hype team with a ton of potential, we’ll still be going with Kinguin as we see them with an edge due to pure skill, which should be able to shut down Immunity’s strategies.

to keep it simple and short, in case immunity wins this, this would be without a doubt the biggest upset of the tournament. some of us predicted the LG win yesterday vs kinguin which was really realistic, but honestly i don’t see alot chances for immunity here. VP played sloppy yesterday, forcing and rushing every ct round, that’s why the result looks somewhat promising. immunity only managed to win a single cobble round on their ct side.

kinguin will veto cobble (probably train as 2nd veto), that’s what i can say for sure.

i expect kinguin to be on point today and give 100% from the first round on. that’s their last chance to dream of the playoffs, as obviously a quarter/semi final favorite aka c9 is in their way.

my bet will be a medium bet on kinguin; in case the odds are 92% + i will skip it though as that’s beyond crazy with almost no reward.

Please keep in mind, that this match is a BO1, so that does increase the risk, however Kinguin should still be able to take this series home.

Kinguin didn’t look too great today. They lost against Luminosity Gaming (ex-KeyD) in a BO1 on Overpass. The score ended up as 6-16, and now we see them in a risky position. Kinguin has only played one match this LAN, so there isn’t too much to go off of. Kinguin has recently signed ‘LEGIJA’ (ex-Mouz player, very informative and smart) as their coach, and this is his first LAN event with the team. It could still take a little bit of time for him to get used to calling the shots for Kinguin, as they don’t have an IGL and the coach calls for them. This is like swapping the IGL, and this has a big impact on the player’s performance if the coach can’t communicate well. Kinguin has used an IGL in the past, however they do perform better if all 5 players are focused on fragging and not worrying about what to do next.

Like Kinguin, Immunity also has had just one game so far in the LAN, and it was against Virtus Pro on Cobblestone. It was expected that Immunity would lose, however they did manage to grab a couple of rounds off the Poles, but they didn’t get the win in the end, and the map concluded at 8-16. Immunity is coming in to this LAN with very little international experience compared to the other teams in attendance, however they have been to a couple of LANs. Immunity is considered to be Australia’s second best team, which in the grand scheme of things, isn’t too great. I personally think that Immunity won’t be able to make much of an impact on teams at this LAN, along with eBettle, who are a T3 team which powered through the qualifiers.

Overall, I think that Kinguin should be able to take this, and I personally think that they can out aim Immunity pretty easily. The players of Kinguin have attended a few LANs together, so they should be somewhat comfortable. Seperately, the players have a great deal of LAN experience. Immunity is a good squad for the Oceanic scene, but they won’t be able to deal much damage to international teams.